What is the advantage of Class-Based views?

You can subclass a class and refine methods like get_context_data for specific cases, and leave the rest as-is. You can't do that with functions.

For instance, you might need to create a new view that does everything a previous one does, but you need to include extra variable in the context. Subclass the original view and override the get_context_data method.

Also, separating the steps needed to render the template into separate methods promotes clearer code - the less done in a method, the easier it is to understand. With regular view functions, it's all dumped into the one processing unit.

If self.args[0] is bothering you, the alternative is:

urlpatterns = patterns('books.views',
    url(r'^books/(?P<slug>\w+)/$', 'publisher_books_list', name="publisher_books_list"),
)

Then you could use self.kwargs['slug'] instead, making it slightly more readable.

Your example function and class are not equal in features.

The class based version provide pagination for free and forbid the use of other HTTP verbs than GET.

If you want to add this to your function, it's going to be much longer.

But it is, indeed, more complicated.